in Cape Town

My boxes arrived today...the end of the journey? Strangely this seems an apt expression in more ways than I can explain at the moment.

a week of change and a big decision

Since I've been writing this blog I've been cynical bordering on pessimistic about the PhD road I've been travelling. I've found the process boring, tedious, uninspiring, difficult, devoid of real learning opportunities, depressing, demotivating, bad for my mental health to name but a few ways in which I've captured my experiences. However, since I've come back to Cape Town I've noticed a subtle shift that became more pronounced last week. Suddenly I found I was filled with this sense of determination to crack this nut. I actually felt I could get on top of it and actually do it. I dare not say enthusiastic, because that would be like a bit of a show-off. I've feel like I want to embrace this thing and do the best job I can. I suspect a lot of this new found vigour has to do with feeling really supported - emotionally and academically - I feel like I'm being held up and protected.
Then this week I had to go back to work - I started to be included in the normal academic activities and my future was being planned and plotted. The cold, hard reality of not having finished the PhD in the UK hit me right between the eyes. I realised for the first time, probably since I started my studies in the UK, the enormity of trying to finish a PhD (especially the last 6-9 months) while juggling a demanding, time and energy sapping job. I also know that I haven't always enjoyed the full-time PhD experience and have said in the past that I might have done better with having bit of it part-time and full-time. I still think that kind of model has its benefits. However, as I'm moving into the zone, where things are starting to coalesce,  the need to fill my brain space with only PhD feels absolutely critical. So I've made a decision - I'm going to ask for more time off - another six months - from January to June, to finish my thesis. This is a big decision because I may have to do this on unpaid leave and even if I don't have to do it on unpaid leave I won't be earning a full salary and will still be left with particular obligations to my current institution. But I'm so close to the end now and it just feels like this is the right thing to do - for me. Maybe I can still find some enjoyment out of the process - maybe this is where the enjoyment will come, through the sacrifice - I don't know. I've made the decision but as yet I'm not sure how it will be received.

I spoke to a colleague yesterday, she has been doing her PhD here in Cape Town while holding down a full-time job (like most people I know in South Africa who have done a PhD) and just recently took off some time from work to devoted to her PhD. We were having a little gripe session, comparing our experiences and we both came to the same conclusion, that at the heart of the PhD experience is a personal desire, need and determination to finish the project. It has less to do with your intellectual ability (or proving your intellectual ability) and more about a test of your levels of self-confidence, tenacity, self-esteem, self-awareness and self-worth. You have to take the knocks and the blows and get up and dust yourself off and stand ready for the next 'fight'. So onwards I go - more determined than ever - knowing that it just has to come together in this new time frame.

breathe in, breathe out

Nothing goes the way we plan it. Maybe that is the golden rule of planning - if you plan it, chances are you should expect to make some adjustments and changes.

Being in transition is practically about changing your plans almost continually. You have to ask 'Is there any point in planning?' during this tricky, fluid period, because everything seems to change in a blink of an eye. One minute it's ok for me to work on my PhD, the next I have to be more visible at work.  One minute I am in charge of scoping out the path I want to flow - the next minute it is all predetermined for me. It's been a bit of a shock to go back into institutional life and to realise that things are pretty much the same as they were when I left. Unfortunately all the old rather unpleasant feelings and associations have remained too. I feel as if I'm being forced to think about things I just don't have the head space for. It would have been nice to only do this when I had Draft 1 all ready and polished. But it's not to be.

I'm behind in my schedule but somehow feel more and more determined. My tasks is to finish the Draft 1 where I will scope out the solid beginning of my thesis argument by December. Come hell or high water this is what I will do...give or take a few days of course...to accommodate the minor panic attacks and fits of frustration...yeah right!

I think I'm gonna be fine...

Being a PhD student in your final year is not for the faint hearted. You go from peaceful and calm to frantic, irrational, crazy person in almost 10 seconds flat. On a Monday you look towards the coming week with great anticipation of being productive and making steady progress and when you reach Friday and look back over what you have done, you find a few diagrams illustrating your analysis framework and an analysis chapter only just looking like something half presentable. I'm being a bit unforgiving because this process isn't always just about being able to show in a tangible hard copy what resulted from your thinking work. I'm trying to illustrate that at the beginning of this week I was confident about achieving something and now have to be content with what I have achieve - which doesn't neatly line up with what those projected intentions. Your expectations always have to be tentative.

I had a insightful and honest critical conversation this morning - and as a result I think I'm gonna be fine. I realise I probably won't be fine all the time, but in little pockets here and there I will be and at the end of this long, protracted, soul-wrenching process I will be fine. But I'm only going to fine if I lean on the supports around me. Not only is a PhD not for the faint hearted, it's not something you want to do alone. 
Aluta continua...

oh how boring!

I'd forgotten how freaking boring it is to sit down day after day and craft words. My brain feels like word-soup. I don't mind the writing but the process is a solitary and boring one. I experienced this in the UK too and frequently had to punctuate these writing spells with trips to the OU for some personal company and engaging tea breaks. Now back in Cape Town I've isolated myself in my study and I'm feeling the effects.

I've started to work on my analysis chapters. A good strategy as I have my Research Methodology fresh in my mind. I suspect that as the week progresses I will have both chapters side-by-side adjusting and amending as they start to influence and shape each other. The overall end result can only be the strengthening of all the resultant work.

Yeah - you have to love your research topic and want to finish this thing because it's 80% boring and 20% exciting stuff. Also the sheer volume and scope of the writing task. My research methodology chapter is currently larger than my whole MRes dissertation - holding all the bits together is keeping me from my sleep at night. But I'm moving out this week - a special little cafe in Observatory with my name on it is calling me...a ray of sunshine in the boring grey skyline.

domestic issues aside?

The week started well and then unfortunately disintegrated into a mess as I has to look away from the thesis and face a series of domestic issues needing attention. My Research methodology chapter is still hanging as a result - I've made a first, but solid, stab at carefully articulating my analytic framework and I've resolved not to raise the issue of generalisability in this chapter but deal with it in the conclusion, if I'm going to deal with it at all. This is one of the chapters I'm most happy with and I think it provides a solid foundation that almost meticulously and explicitly lays bear what I did and why. So for now I'm reasonably happy. I think I will have to 'park it' for now and come back to it again before I make my Draft 1 submission. I need to make up lost time so have to move on to the analysis chapters. Now that the major domestic issues have been settled (my cooker and new security gates are installed) I can focus more intently on my work. I'm also hoping that certain parts of the thesis will progress quickly so I can catch-up on my work plan.

This week also saw me attending to reviewer comments about a book chapter I've been working on. This is the final submission and I've been pulling my hair out about minute stylistic detail and sentence structure. I wish my grammar and vocabulary were better - maybe this would help me craft beautiful sentences that clearly communicate my view points. But instead I've been fretting about my grammatical and word choices. There are certain paragraphs where I know I'm expressing the point I want to make in a really dull and convoluted way - but I just don't have the 'tools' I need to craft it more elegantly. Anyway - I suspect I'm going to bemoan this particular point over and over again during the next few months as I try to do the same thing with the thesis...heaven help me! The sun is shining outside, it's a beautiful day in Cape Town - maybe I'll get out and enjoy it.

Week One!

My first week of working on Draft 1 of my thesis has already come to an end. It's the first week of work since I returned to Cape Town and a good month since I did any serious work on my thesis. It was a fairly productive week considering that I was also trying to buy a car, get my stove fitted into the existing kitchen units, resolve a long standing administrative glitch associated with my medical aid and get a range of niggly little odd jobs finished in my flat. It was a week of major distractions. Last Sunday I worked out a work schedule that would take me from the five individual chapters I had already written to a cohesive Draft 1 of my thesis containing a total of seven chapters in just under eight weeks. Allocating different tasks to each week made me realised just how little time I actually had. Previously, I imagined that eight weeks was a rather generous time frame. Mid-way through the week I realised that in future I need to construct a weekly work plan to guide my tasks and activities - simply working toward an ideal goal of 'Finish Research Methodology Chapter' is really just providing the right amount of rope I need to hang myself.

So back to work and it feels pretty much the same as it did in England - except I can't quickly walk over the field to the OU when I want some human interaction or to print whatever I've written. In many ways I've imposed a form of self-isolated because I haven't made any conscious plans to see my friends or old colleagues. But it's easy to pop down to my family for a quick catch-up chat or hot meal and intersperse this with my work activities. I guess it feels more balanced and I know I will become more social as my routine becomes entrenched and I feel more confident about the progress I'm making. In a strange way I miss the familiar what was my working life in England and the OU - I miss my friends - the tea breaks with SB (and the recently the cuddles with MM) the frappes with KC, coffee in the Hub with SP, the phone conversations with JT and the cynical but deeply funny chats with BD. It will get better the more settled I start to feel. I just want to make progress and see the coherent entity, that will be my thesis, start to emerge. When that starts to happens I know I will be on my way...